


The Call of Markov

by levigu



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel)
Genre: Crossover, Cthulhu Mythos, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, One Shot, POV First Person, Psychological Horror, my first AO3 work; be nice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 15:14:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14287689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levigu/pseuds/levigu
Summary: [Yuri's POV] The passing of Yuri's uncle, a famed researcher of ancient languages, leads to his work coming into her possession. Her curiosity is stronger than she can resist, and it's not long before she discovers some things about the world that man should not know. Canon-compliant oneshot, crossover with Lovecraft's mythos.





	The Call of Markov

I do not recall the passing of my uncle, who was for thirty-one years a professor of ancient languages at a university of renown located in Nagoya prefecture. He and I were not close in life, but as he died childless and a good six years after the death of his wife, a substantial proportion of his research and notes passed to me upon his death. I felt obliged, in respect of the memory of a good and dedicated man, to sort through his papers and set aside anything of interest, but in truth, the vast majority of my uncle’s research was incomprehensible to me, and I passed it along to the university in due course.

However, there was one box which I felt it would be unwise to show to other eyes. Although it was locked, and seemed like it would brook no approach to opening it, the air of the thing was a damnable one, and it made me shudder to think of what might be inside. I could not help but feel drawn to its intoxicating charm, and though I pried at the lock with a variety of implements, it remained firm. The thing only loosed its contents into the world when I dared to examine the only personal possession my uncle had left me – a strange ring, devoid of jewels, but bearing a cryptic mark struck in gold. I pressed the etching to what would have passed for a keyhole, and the box sprung open.

The first thing that my eyes fell upon was a strange carving. The little statuette, no more than eight inches high, was cold as ice to the touch, even though I was opening up the box indoors on a pleasant September evening. It appeared to be of a greenish stone, speckled with an irregular grey pattern, and depicted an entity that has lingered in my mind ever since. The hideous being was vaguely humanoid in form, with a face that resembled an octopus or squid, tentacles sprouting from where you might suppose its mouth to be. Its hands and feet were webbed, and it had rudimentary wings sprouting from its back. The creature was crouching, giving it a somewhat menacing appearance, and the little carving stood upon a base that was inscribed with some sort of hieroglyphs that I had no hope of reading.

Setting the carving aside, I saw that all that remained in the box were two books and a folded sheet of paper. The first book that I picked up appeared to be bound in tan leather, and it bore a title written in the same sort of hieroglyphs as the base of the statue. I opened it to a random page, to be greeted first of all by a drawing of another hideous beast, this one appearing similar to the Kappa of mythology, a humanoid entity with scaly skin of sickly green and a vicious-looking beak. The text around it was written in a miniscule, cramped hand, also in this indecipherable script, and having nothing of value to gain from this or any of the other few pages I glimpsed at, I slammed the book shut.

The second book caught my eye immediately – perhaps it was the strange glyph of an eye that was etched in gold onto the cover. It was a thin black hardbacked volume, and while the title was only printed on the spine, it was in the familiar Japanese kana that I could understand. The Portrait of Markov. Nothing about the book gave the faintest hint of what it was about, so I cracked it open. Inside the front cover, someone – presumably my uncle – had scrawled three characters in katakana, the alphabet used to transcribe foreign words into Japanese. クツル, ku-tu-lu. I couldn’t explain why, but even reading those characters sent a shiver down my spine.

Troubled, I lifted out the final gift this little box had to offer, the folded piece of paper which, by its ragged edge, had clearly been torn from its source carelessly. It bore Japanese writing in a shaky hand, and as I read the short note, my blood ran cold in my veins.

_Yuri, if I should perish before I complete my research, I know this will fall into your hands. I’m sorry. If anyone can find a way out, it’s you._

Fear struck into the core of my being. I crumpled up the scrap of paper and threw it away aimlessly. I just wanted it away from me, I didn’t care where. I didn’t know my uncle, nor what sort of person he was in life. Was this the sort of cruel joke that he’d play on me from beyond the grave? I hoped that the wretched old man was looking down on me and laughing, because the alternative was too horrifying to contemplate.

Like the rat that had smelled the cheese in the trap, I had to press on. I picked up the damn book, The Portrait of Markov, and I began to read. Whatever this “ku-tu-lu” thing was, it had no place in the story. The book was about some cult that lived wild in the forest, although the location was not specified, almost as if the author was taking great pains to avoid doing so and to keep the book’s setting as generic as possible. This cult would capture prisoners and perform wondrous and terrible experiments on them, turning their captives into bloodthirsty killing machines, even dabbling in some human-animal gene splicing, all for the glory of the bizarre entity that they worshipped. It was exactly the sort of story that I would typically enjoy, so maybe my late uncle had paid more attention to my life than I knew. However, I couldn’t appreciate this book, not while I thought of the other surprises the old man had left behind for me.

I resolved to deal with this some other time. Time was getting on, and this being a Sunday evening, I had school the next day. I left the books shut on my desk and retired for the night, but my sleep was a troubled one. To this day, I remember my dreams that night. I remember an underwater city carved out of rough-hewn stone, abandoned by its citizens, who took the frightful forms of men with the faces of fish and gills pulsating on their necks. I remember a cyclopean tomb, guarded by naught but the sheer terror that even being in close proximity to it wrought. I remember how the angles just didn’t fit, like the geometry of the place was utterly irregular and alien, yet in my dream, I navigated it with ease. And most of all, I remember those syllables, ku-tu-lu, reverberating with eerie regularity through this nightmarish landscape.

I awoke to the sound of my alarm, like any other schoolday. By any count, I had slept a regulation eight hours, but I felt for all the world that I might as well have been awake for a month. My sleep had not been restful, and I supposed that the best thing I could do was to get to school and focus on something else. On some primal impulse, I grabbed The Portrait of Markov on my way out, stowing it in my bag. My hand ached to bring the other book, or perhaps the strange stone idol, but I stamped down this urge, knowing in my heart of hearts that nothing good could come of such a thing.

The familiar streets seemed alien to me. I had made this walk many times, but something seemed otherworldly about my surroundings. Nothing was visibly different, but something about the aura seemed imposing and suffocating. I chanced to check the time, and discovered that I was half an hour ahead of schedule. I had rushed out of the house without taking the time for breakfast – not that I was feeling hungry, in any case. I decided that I could stop at the bookstore before I arrived at school. I had enough time to find something new to read.

I gravitated straight to the horror section, naturally. It was a small section, just a couple of shelves devoted to my niche interests, and on those shelves, the chances of finding something that really sprung out at me were often low. Still, there were often hidden gems to be found, and I hoped to make a similar discovery that morning. What I actually discovered brought the chill of the previous night into the harsh light of day. 

There it was, sticking out from a display off in the corner. A lone copy of The Portrait of Markov, with the same accursed eye on the cover. I snatched the book from the display and opened it up in a frenzy. No scribbled words, nothing untoward, save that it was the exact same book as I had in my bag. I didn’t know why, but I had to have it. I must have looked flushed, or unwell, or tired, or all of these, because the cashier inquired about my wellbeing, but I assured her that I was fine, paid for my purchase and rushed out, the book nestling in my bag next to its twin.

I arrived at school essentially on autopilot, which was the same condition in which I passed through my classes that day. On one occasion, my name was called four times by a teacher before I was able to respond to her question. I apologised profusely and explained that I hadn’t slept well the previous night, but this garnered little sympathy. It was in this state that I arrived at the end of the schoolday, seriously considering heading straight home, or perhaps to a doctor. But I had one more thing to attend to, something that I wasn’t going to miss. The literature club meeting, one of my sole sanctuaries in a world where I had so often been made to feel like an outcast.

This was Monika’s idea, of course, a brainwave of hers to create something of her own, something that she could be proud of, a place where we could enjoy in peace something that not a lot of other people would have found interesting. I welcomed the sanctuary of that clubroom, nestled in a quiet corner of the school amongst a number of infrequently used classrooms. Monika was the only one in the room when I arrived, and of the many things from the preceding 24 hours that remain permanently etched in my mind, her expression was only the latest.

She knew.

I don’t know how she knew, or how I realised that she knew – but she did. She didn’t have to say anything, it was writ large across her expression that she knew exactly what had been plaguing my mind, and she seemed satisfied that things were going to plan. I momentarily considered confronting her, but even if I had been confident enough to do so, I couldn’t find the words. It was as if the part of my brain responsible for doing so utterly refused to piece the idea together. Thankfully, I was spared from having to think about this any longer by the arrival of Natsuki, who assured us with a beaming smile that she had a surprise for us, and shortly thereafter, Sayori, who had brought a friend.

Something about him captured my thoughts immediately. Here was someone who I could relate to, someone who was worthy of my time, worthy of sharing great and terrible secrets with. It didn’t matter that he didn’t read much, or that he would think me creepy and obsessive if he knew the truth about me. No, I could convince him to read. I could convince him that I did what I did out of love. And what better place to start than with The Portrait of Markov?

All that I needed was to get him alone.

Away from Monika.

Away from the chaos of this tumultuous world.

I would get him to read with me, to open up his eyes to a whole new reality. I would write poems to him, trusting that he would read between the lines to see my devotion reflected in my words, and he would do the same for me, communicating in a prosaic code that we alone would comprehend. He would learn to dismiss the abrasive, intellectually base Natsuki, the sullen, withdrawn Sayori, and of course Monika, who surveyed her kingdom from on high like a latter-day Marie Antoinette. I would teach him sophistication, elegance, and literacy, and a glimpse into the universe besides the contentment of the ignorance into which he had been born.

And when the time was right, and I felt that he had sufficiently opened up his Third Eye, to become as awakened as I had become...

I would give thanks for allowing me to be a part of his world, even if just for a moment, although I do not belong there, nor do I belong here any longer. So I would take out my knife, the one that I had tried to hide from the outside world for so long. And with the beating of hellish drums resounding in my ears, I would make the ultimate sacrifice.

This would be my ending.


End file.
